90% a good movie.

This is one of those tragic films that seems to have all the elements of being a great film but somehow manages to just miss the mark.  It has funny elements for sure, and the cast is stunning, but the sum of the parts of this film just felt like less than the individual values of them.

I saw it last night and have been trying to put my thumb on what the issue really is.  It could be that the director, Don Scardino, really only has TV credits to his name.  He directed a bunch of episodes of 30 Rock, and that’s kind of what this film felt like; a three part episode of 30 Rock (30 Rock image courtesy of the TV Show T Shirts).  Clever lines, funny characters, and running jokes that are all ha ha funny but not bust your gut funny.  Some of the elements border on genius, but most of it is that special kind of comedy that graces the pages of the New Yorker magazine where you are more or less obligated to admit that the joke is intellectually funny but doesn’t actually do anything to tickle your funny bone.

I will say the cast and acting was impressive as all hell.  Everything you have ever loved about Steve Carrell, Steve Buscemi, and Jim Carrey is displayed in force here, and the best scenes are the interactions between the three.  The rest of the supporting cast also knocked it out of the park.  All around an A+ for the performers.

The story is of Vegas magicians Burt Wonderstone (Steve Carell-the Office, Crazy, Stupid Love, the 40 Year Old Virgin) and Anton Marvelton (Steve Buscemi-Fargo, Resevoir Dogs, the Big Lebowski) as they get tired of their act and each other.  They start off as best friends in grade school but by the end are treating it like a mediocre job they don’t want to do.  Meanwhile street musician Steve Grey (Jim Carrey-Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, the Truman Show, Dumb and Dumber) is edging out their act by doing Chris Angel style stunts such as holding his urine for 12 days.  Burt and Anton have a falling out as they try to do something as difficult and go their separate ways.  Burt more or less fails out of show business and end up entertaining retirees at an old age home.

There he meets his youth idol Rance Holloway (Alan Arkin-Argo, Little Miss Sunshine, Edward Scissorhands) who helps re-ignite his old passion for magic.  He goes back to the basics and puts together an act with Anton and his former assistant Jane (Olivia Wilde-Tron:Legacy, In Time, the Change Up.  Weird.  I wouldn’t have thought I did three full reviews for her movies.  Too bad they all kind of sucked since I kind of like her) to go head to head with nemesis Grey.  Magic happens, but nothing that would surprise you.

The stars.  Overall excellent cast and acting.  If you are a fan of any of the actors in this film you will see them displayed in their best light.  Three stars.  There were parts that were really funny, especially the scenes between Carrell and Buscemi.  One star.  I don’t usually go in for this sort of thing but I have to give the makeup people special props.  They managed to make all the characters look significantly different from what you are used to seeing, and the work they did with Alan Arkin was brilliant.  One star.  The scene shot for the beginning of the credits was funnier than the entirety of the film.  Don’t rush to leave your seat.  One star.  Generally a fun movie all around.  One star.  Total: seven stars.

The black holes.  The film story was predictable, and generally borrowed heavily (including the main character) from any Will Ferrel you want to name except Stranger than Fiction.  One black hole.  A lot of the humor didn’t really strike a chord with the audience (except for at the end).  It was like hearing a joke you didn’t get and then having the joker explain it to you.  Eventually you throw a courtesy laugh to get him to shut up but the moment has passed.  One black hole.  The romance sub plot between Carrell and Wilde was really tacked on and had no meaning or relevance.  One black hole.  Total: three black holes.

A grand total of four stars.  Yes, I enjoyed it and believe you will as well.  However, a year from now I sincerely doubt anyone not cursed with my stupid incredible memory for bad movie plots will really remember this film.  It will just pass by and five years from now when your girlfriend picks it out as something to watch you will remember having seen it after the first 10 minutes.  Date movie?  Sure, no harm here.  It is cute and funny with very little to offend her.  Mostly harmless.  Bathroom break?  The scene where Carrell and Wilde start making out after planning their big number is pretty worthless.  There isn’t a scene in this film that missing it will damage your understanding, so feel free to go whenever.

Thanks for reading.  I’ll try to see something tomorrow night after a scheduled round of Warhammer ETC practice (if you know what that is cool.  If you don’t explaining will serve no purpose).  Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu.  Post comments on this review or the film here, and if you have off topic questions or suggestions feel free to email me at david@nerdkungfu.com.

Dave

So a friend of mine sent me a link to a casting call for people who like to dress up as zombies to try out for an episode of the great show Mythbusters, filmed right here in the Bay Area (Reject Your Reality image courtesy of the TV Show T Shirts).  The notice is calling for people willing to show up in camera ready zombie attire with makeup.  They need to have full range of movement, including head and torso and need to be able to don helmets or torso padding.  Given how cool both zombies and this show are, my mind is spinning as to what zombie myth they plan to test.

When you think about it, due to the fact that they want you to show up in zombie drag they probably aren’t trying to create zombies out of people.  I doubt they want to test the whole shoot zombies in the head to kill them either, since that works pretty well for living humans too.  Could they be testing to see if a human can outrun a massive herd of shambling humans?  The helmet and torso padding mention is throwing me too.  Maybe they are training dogs to attach zombie heads?  I am totally confused.

If any of you try out and get in let me know what they are working on.  I am dying of curiosity.  If you can’t talk about it for press reasons I will keep it secret until the episode comes out, but I kind of have to know.  Given the massive font of creative cos play and zombie love that is here in the Bay Area they should be getting some of the best zombies this side of the Walking Dead.

If you are interested in participating check out their zombie application form.  Good luck, and if you do it I hope you have a blast.

Dave

A good/bad film you might just love/hate.

I saw this the other night and did enjoy it.  However, I am truly a Tarantino fan boy and have a deep appreciation of his particular style of good/bad movie making.  He writes intriguing characters and situations better than anyone else, and then delivers them without any excess dross to gum up the movie experience.  However, he has a deep appreciation of camp that, for someone who thinks camp is a sign of bad movie making, can really hurt the film for the wrong person.

The good news is that, camp aside every part of this film is more or less flawlessly executed.  The acting is all around brilliant, the story very interesting (think good comic book origin story without the super powers), and the camera work perfect.  In all ways an extremely good example of what filming should be about.

Of course, if I am going to review this film I should address the elephant in the room, the prolific use of the dreaded “N” word.  I will say it was used with great frequency.  It first it was off putting, then it started to sound a lot like a three year old learning a dirty word and yelling out incessantly, but by the end of the movie I started to see what (I believe) Tarantino was going for with this.  You see, this movie more than anything else tries to show the cruelty and dehumanization of the slave trade in the Antebellum South (albeit in a remarkably cartoonish, over the top style.  Something of Quentin’s signature, I guess).  If you feel you have not felt enough guilt in your life for being Caucasian this film will help you with that.  The point is the N word is used with such frequency and in such a workaday manner that it really help illustrate how ingrained and natural the racism really was (and some might say, still is).  The characters in this film used it the ease and natural cadence as one today would use the word man or woman, and that successfully drove the racism point home with all the subtlety of a machete used for brain surgery.

It wouldn’t be one of my reviews if I didn’t find something to bitch about, and fortunately there is stuff for me to latch on to.  The plot Django and Dr. Schultz cook up by the end of the film to buy Django’s wife out of slavery is needlessly complicated and outright stupid.  The whole time they were crafting this elaborate ruse I was thinking “Couldn’t they have just ridden up to the house and offered a large sum of money?”  That’s pretty much what I would have done.  A lot of time is spent setting things up, which in a lesser movie I would have called plodding and slow paced.  Also, while I really liked the Dr. Schultz and Calvin Candie characters, I felt the Django character was really simple and two dimensional.  He spend most of the film as a moving plot point with guns.  No real depth to him.

Spoilers coming up, so if you want to avoid them skip ahead five paragraphs.

The story is of young Django (Jamie Foxx-Miami Vice, Law Abiding Citizen, Horrible Bosses.  I couldn’t find an image of Jamie Foxx as Detective Tubbs, but this great image comes courtesy of the TV Show T Shirt category), a slave in the South two years prior to the Civil War.  He is on a coffle traveling somewhere under the control of two with trash morons when they come across the wagon of Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz-Inglorious Basterds, Water for Elephants, Carnage), a wandering dentist and bounty hunter.  Schultz wants Django to help him identify three bounties.  He frees Django and the rest of the coffle (with the first of many rated R bloodbaths) and sets off after the guys.

Schultz determines that Django has a talent for bounty hunting and offers him a job helping out for the winter, after which he will help to find Django’s wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington-Mr. and Mrs. Smith, Last King of Scotland, Ray, and hopefully one day staring as the bride at my future wedding.  What a heartbreaker).  After a colorful montage of bounty hunting scenes they hare off to find Broomhilda.  In short order they determine that she has been bought by Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio-Titanic, Inception, Shutter Island), one of the wealthiest landowners in Mississippi.  He is not by nature written as a cruel man (relative to the others around him) and is in his own way a very intriguing character, although some of his actions during the film really put me off my feed.

At this point IMO the story falls off the rails for a while.  Rather than ride up to the Candie Manor and offer $1,000 for a slave Candie paid $300 for they develop this amazing long and complicated plot to trick Candie out of her.  I swear it made the Usual Suspects look like Legally Blonde.  They are posing as investors in some kind of slave fight arena (think a more horrible version of dog fighting, if that is possible) and want to spend a ton of money buying one of Candie’s best fighters.  Somehow they are going to get Broomhilda for tuppence during the course of this facade.

This plot is ruined by Candies clever head house slave Steven (played brilliantly by Samuel L Jackson-Pulp Fiction, the Incredibles, Jackie Brown.  We won’t talk about his Mace Windu years) and instead of getting her for the $1,000 they could probably have gotten going they spend $12,000 on her.  At that point the deal falls apart mainly due to Schultz being unable to shake Candie’s hand and the whole movie ends in a huge bloodbath.

The stars.  Good film in almost all regards.  One black hole.  A film that for the first time in a long time takes on something more complicated than the usual dross.  One star.  All the stars were brilliant, and their characters really intriguing.  Three stars.  Dialog was spot on.  One star.  Nice message delivered to America.  One star.  All around fun movie.  Two stars.  Total: nine stars.

The black holes.  Needlessly complicated end plot.  One black hole.  Run time seemed long at 165 minutes.  A stronger hand on the editing would have tightened things up a lot I think.  One black hole.  Total: two black holes.

By the way, I spotted what I think is a huge technical error but Tarantino is such an accomplished filmmaker I can only assume he did it on purpose.  In one of the gunfights towards the end all the guys stop shooting and you can here a brass casing bounce off the ground like you do in pretty much 100% of all modern gun fights.  The thing is they were all using revolvers, which don’t eject brass.  I supposed an argument could be made that it was a repeating rifle, but that wasn’t really developed until 1860 and this film took place in 1858.  Either Tarantino is having a laugh at it, or he should fire his Foley editor.  (This last passage is conclusive proof that I am a nerd, BTW)

A total of seven stars, and a big thumbs up from me.  I’d put this move on the same level as Inglorious Basterds, but not as good as Pulp Fiction or Reservoir Dogs.  Definitely worth seeing, and if you want to have fun see it like I did in a theater that was literally 99% liberal white people and watch them squirm at all the racial abuse going on the screen.  Date movie?  Probably not.  Violent and gory, and there is a dog mauling scene that will ruin canines for you for life.  Bathroom break?  The best part IMO is the long ride they all take out to Candieland.  I’d say from the moment Schultz joins Candie on the buggy you have a good 3-4 minutes of not a lot happening.

Thanks for reading.  Look for my review of Jack Reacher tomorrow.  I need time to figure out a clever enough subtitle for such an epically mediocre movie.  Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu.  Feel free to post comments here on this movie or my review.  Off topic questions or suggestions can be sent to david@nerdkungfu.com.  Happy New Year, and I’ll talk to you soon.

Dave

P.S.  Look for my 2012 movie recap coming soon.  Still looking for a clever name for my awards.  So far all I have is “Nerdies” and I think that blows.  Any suggestions will be seriously considered.

I was saddened to learn this morning about the passing of Larry Hagman, the man behind Dallas.  I wasn’t much of a fan of the show, but my mother loved it and I suspect had a thing for JR Ewing.  However, I was a big fan of I Dream of Jeannie (I have long had a secret desire to have a hot Genie in a bottle) and enjoyed him a lot there.  His filmography is truly impressive.  I also really liked him in Mother, Juggs, and Speed (If you ever think you really don’t know what the 70′s were about watch this movie), the Streets of San Francisco, and I really enjoyed him in Nip/Tuck.

For those of you who claim to be connoisseurs of bad movies, he also directed a film in 1972 called Beware! The Blog!  This is a sequel the the Blog and looks horribly good if you know what I mean.  I have already suggested it to the guy who does my groups bad movie night as a tribute to the passing of a great actor.

Anyway, I am very sorry to see him go.  From what I have heard he had a pretty good sense of humor, and that is something I always enjoy in a celebrity.  (the image I got from the TV show t shirt category, by the way.  I think it apropos).

Dave

So I finished season 2 of the Walking Dead and (of course) loved it.  However, it was all around pretty grim and depressing so I figured after all that zombie stuff I could used some lighter fare and went with season 6 of 30 Rock.  I have always enjoyed it.  For me the measure of a good comedy is one wherein none of the main characters bug me, and 30 Rock manages to pull that off nicely.  I am particularly a fan of Kenneth.  I think he rules.

The thing I just noticed, however, is unlike a series like the Walking Dead I really can’t sit down and watch more than two shows in a row.  If it’s zombies I can sit at my painting table and run six episodes in a row, but with 30 Rock I am full up after two.  Maybe there is a limit to how much sophisticated, clever NY humor I can handle.  I always noticed the same thing with Seinfeld, although not so much with Friends.  Of course, whenever I got bored with the humor on Friends I could occupy my attention with just looking at any of the three women.

I’m trying to figure out if this indicates some kind of low brow mentality on my part.  It possibly could.  I will admit I laugh like a maniac whenever I see someone get punched in the testicles.  On the other hand most fart or excrement humor really turns me off.  It can be funny, but only if done in the right way.

Anyway, it is a bit of a conundrum.  Sorry I don’t have a lot else to write about.  I have a lot going on right now and my time is really taken up.  I will try to see some movies this weekend and write up some good reviews.  By the way, the Tracy image I pulled from the TV show t shirt category.  We have a bunch of 30 Rock on there.

Dave

Worth watching, but not worth rushing out to see.

Before I get into this review I want to make one thing absolutely clear: I, like any sane, rational human who lives in an urban are infested by hipsters, have a burning hatred of fixies that goes far beyond the pale.  I actually like bikes and bicyclists and have one of my own (collecting dust with a flat, but at least I own one).  I have always enjoyed watching BMX and trial bikes.  However, I have found fixie riders to be to hipsters what hipster are to non D-bag people.  (Portlandia image courtesy of the TV Show T Shirt category)

I mention this because the main character in this story is a fixie bike messenger, and I want to distance myself from his inclinations before I admit I actually like his character a lot (in spite of his very wrong mechanical affinity).  I enjoyed this movie quite a bit.  The action, while less inclined to follow the more traditional action hero formula, was exciting.  The bike stunts and scenes were extremely well done and well shot.  The main character Wiley (Joseph Gordon-Levitt-50/50, Inception, the Dark Knight Rises) was interesting, fun, and well portrayed.  The supporting girls were reasonably good and both pretty hot (especially Jamie Chung (the Hangover Part 2, Sucker Punch, Grown Ups) who gets my vote as the hottest Asian alive right now).  Most importantly the story made sense and didn’t have any massive plot holes or lack of motivation to bug the hell out of me.  Everyone had a reason for doing what they were doing and at no point did it really stretch those motivation beyond what seemed reasonable.

All that being said, the film definitely had its issues.  The story, while believable, was delivered in the most clunky and awkward manner possible.  Flashbacks done well can be cool, but flashbacks done badly (especially done with a clock showing where you are Vantage Point style) feels like you cut your movie into 10 minute chunks and shot them out of a shotgun at a wall.  Most of the characters besides Wiley were tertiary and insubstantial, and the villain (Michael Shannon-Vanilla Sky, Pearl Harbor, Bad Boys II) shifted gears radically from comedy relief to terrifying rage monster back and forth so often you find yourself wondering if his role was originally supposed to be two characters.  The dialog was not great either, and I’m pretty sure they lifted a big part of the ending from the book Snow Crash.

The story.  Honestly watch any “everyone wants the message kill the messenger” movie like the Transporter and you will have it.  This one does not get props for originality.  Wiley is a bike messenger in the Big Apple who rides a fixie and refuses to have a brake on his bike.  He graduated from Columbia Law but has yet to take the bar mainly due to his love of riding.  His last run of the day gets lifted by his biggest competitor (Wolé Parks-Taking Chance, As the World Turns, Undressed) who is also after his girlfriend (Dania Ramirez-X Men First Class, American Reunion, 25th Hour).  He gets a last minute delivery from someone who turns out to be the roommate of his girlfriend Tita (Jamie Chung).  Of course the delivery is very valuable and some Chinese gangsters recruit corrupt NYPD detective Monday (Michael Shannon) to track it down.  At that point it is a chase movie.  Wiley gets does the smart thing and goes to the police first and then tries to bail on the delivery only to be convinced of the morality of making it happen.  Bikes get raced.  Messengers get hit by cars (no spoiler there.  You see it in the first 2 minutes).

The stars.  Story made convoluted sense and didn’t bug me.  Two stars.  Joseph Gordon-Levitt was quite good.  One star.  The bike chase and stunt scenes were very well done and hand me totally engaged.  Two stars.  Jamie Chung should be in every movie made ever.  One star.  Michael Shannon in his comedy avatar was fun and engaging.  One star.  Overall a fun movie.  One star.  Total: eight stars.

The black holes.  The disjointed story telling really tended to pull the audience out of the theater.  One black hole.  Most of the supporting characters didn’t add a lot of depth to the film.  One black hole.  The whole film was fairly derivative, and the ending both borrowed and out of place.  One black hole.  The Michal Shannon violent sociopath avatar felt really out of character.  One black hole.  Total: four black holes.

A grand total of four stars.  Not bad at all.  Worth seeing, and worth seeing in a theater.  Date movie?  Sure, why not?  The action is good without being really gun or fist violence, there is a romance, and some family value stuff.  Just know that between Joseph and Wolé you have two hot guys with avid bicyclist bodies on the screen, so expect to suffer a little in comparison.  Bathroom break?  The convoluted nature of this story deliver means missing the wrong moment can leave you lost when you get back.  I would say that when you see an old Asian woman in China with a little boy towards the last 1/3rd of the film you have about 1-2 minutes of dead time to make a run for it.  Not a lot happening in that scene you won’t have already figured out from earlier or will understand by the end of it.

Thanks for reading.  More movies coming out so I will try to see something tonight or tomorrow.  I am watching all the Star Trek episodes at home and once that is done will start up on TNG.  Since I have never watched that series in order or in it’s entirety I might start doing short recaps and impressions a few episodes per post.  Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu.  Post any comments on this movie or review here, and if you have any off topic questions or suggestions email me at david@nerdkungfu.com.  Talk to you soon.

Dave

I have done a few of these who would win posts and they are kind of fun.  For the most part I go with traditional combat characters but for today I am going to roll with a more comical fight: Homer Simpson versus Peter Griffin.

Now, they are both pretty stupid and quick to violence, but Peter has a certain canniness and homy wisdom that I think Homer is missing.  I think if this were a more James Bond style fight, with all kinds of plots and devices, I would give it to Peter.

On the other hand, let us not forget that Homer was at one point a professional boxer, and at another point had a job having a cannon ball shot into his stomach.  He can definitely take a punch, and in some circumstances Peter is more than a little wimpy on things like barked shins and so on.  Almost to the point of being a little bitch IMO.  I am going to have to give the regular fist fight to Homer.

This image I grabbed from Dave’s TV Show T shirts.  I love this episode.

Jason

Another depressingly competent rom com.

I have hit another one of those Twilight Zone-esque episodes in my movie reviewing career wherein everything I see is at least decent.  This may not sound like a bad thing, but the fact is my funniest and best reviews are all for the worst, most disappointing movies and I can’t seem to find one.  I mean really, where is Nicholas Cage when you really need him?

So this movie was well done.  I have become more of a Jason Segel fan since watching How I Met Your Mother and Emily Blunt is really hot in my mind (plus a good actress).  In this film they exhibit some really good chemistry and accurately portray the agony of a modern relationship (a more cynical and bitter reviewer might say they accurately portray how a woman can destroy a man in a relationship.  Good thing I am so well adjusted).  The film itself is well done and has some really funny moments.  It does seem to drag on at times, and there are some scenes that are either completely unnecessary or extend well past their freshness date.  At first I was prepared to lambast the film for the slow pacing, but as things progressed I suddenly realized that the film was accurately giving me the feeling of what a five year engagement must feel like.  This makes Judd Apatow one of the smartest or luckiest movie makers in the industry.

That’s not to say there weren’t moments when I was hoping to find a fast forward button in my box of Whoppers, but overall I really like the idea of a filmmaker creating a feeling and theme without having to slap us in the face with it.  There was another less subtle but still well delivered theme having to do with stale donuts as well (although I question the validity of the psychology involved) that also made for a decent subtext.

The story is, of course, of a five year engagement.  Jason Segel (The Muppets, Despicable Me, Forgetting Sarah Marshal) and Emily Blunt (the Devil Wears Prada, the Adjustment Bureau, the Young Victoria) play Tom and Violet, a young successful San Francisco couple the likes of which I meet all the time out here (and occasionally want to run over with my car).  He is a sous chef at a high end restaurant and she is a graduate student in psychology.  They get engaged but when she fails to get into Berkeley and instead gets into Michigan he has to quit his job so they can both move to Ann Arbor.  She excels in her program while he descends into a frozen hell and has to get a job in a sandwich shop.  The relationship starts to really crumble and to be perfectly honest I am going to put the blame on this one directly on Violet.  She is completely disconnected from her partner’s pain (sometimes literally) and even when he brings up his issues more or less sits around hoping he gets used to it or something.  I actually found this refreshing as a study in relationships and it was nice to see someone other than the guy painted as the the insensitive one.  Of course this role reversal kind of robbed Jason Segel of whatever machismo he might have had, and no offense Jason but you never seems to play a role overburdened with testosterone.

Left to his own devices Tom has a funny episode where he devolves into a Michigan hunting woodsman (complete with Swamp People beard) which is probably some of the funniest stuff.  The relationship continues to degenerate, abetted by Violets professor Winton Childs (Rhys Ifans-Notting Hill, Anonymous, Little Nicky) untoward interest in her.  The comedy kind of takes a back seat to the drama as things go from bad to worse.  Relationship chaos ensues.  Stuff happens.

The stars.  I was laughing out loud at multiple points.  One star.  Well acted from pretty much everyone.  One star.  The chemistry between Segal and Blunt was palpable.  One star.  The supporting actors, especially best friend Alex (Chris Pratt-Wanted, Parks & Rec, Everwood.  Parks & Rec image courtesy of the TV Show T Shirts) added a lot to the film.  One star.  An honest (and successful) effort to add subtext.  One star.  A realistic look at a dysfunctional relationship.  One star.  The movie managed to make San Francisco look like the greatest city in the world (which, in my opinion, it may well be.  If not it is only second to New York).  One star.  The Tom as a hunter scenes were especially entertaining.  One star.  A bonus star for overall keeping me entertained in a film that should have had me snoozing.  Total: nine stars.

The black holes.  In spite of believing the movie makers did this on purpose to add the feeling of being engaged for five years, you really feel every one of the 124 minutes.  One black hole.  There were a few scenes in particular that stretched on for an eon.  One black hole.  I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.  If you are going to eat an R rating anyway throw in some nudity please.  There was a perfect opportunity towards the end.  One black hole.  SPOILER ALERT.  The ending seemed a little trite and actually did not really resolve any of the main issues.  One black hole.  Total: four black holes.

A grand total of five stars.  A good score for a rom com, and perfect for a five year engagement (I swear that wasn’t on purpose).  Worth seeing?  Sort of, but only as a date.  Good date movie?  Yes and no.  Yes in that it has everything a woman would want to see in a film about romance (and also you will probably compare favorably to pasty white boy Jason Segel.  He’s like a young Raymond Burr).  However, I am actually more concerned about what this film could potentially do to you as the male viewer.  If you are of a dark or paranoid mindset the destruction of Tom’s life in the interest of Violet’s career will probably have you leaving your date at the theater in order to pursue a life as a Buddhist monk (they are cool with internet porn, right?  I had better check on that soon).  However, if you can stomach that this will probably make for a decent date.

Thanks for reading.  More films to see this weekend, including the Raven, Pirates, and Safe.  Hopefully one of them will suck (my money is on Safe).  Follow me on Twitter @Nerdkungfu.  If you have a comment about this review feel free to post it here, and if you have suggestions or specific questions feel free to email me at david@nerdkungfu.com.  Talk to you soon.

Dave

Last week at the recommendation of my best friend Dave I started watching How I Met Your Mother.  I had avoided it prior to that for a number of reasons.  First of all the title alone makes it sound like the brainless “family friendly” pap that gave us shows like Full House.  The base concept-a guy telling his kids about meeting their mother-sounds annoying to say the least.  Furthermore, I figured I had had my fill of young singles living and loving in New York after years of watching Friends, a show that alternated between brilliant and painfully annoying.

However, Dave has yet to steer me wrong so I started watching it.  The first few episodes started off slow but after a while I realized that the show is awesome for exactly one reason: Barney.  You see, Neil Patrick Harris plays a character named Barney who is a self centered, womanizing egomaniac and like most sociopaths you don’t have to deal with in your life is endlessly entertaining.  He is very well written and of course Neil plays him brilliantly.  I think he is great.

The rest of the cast is a lot more bland, although that just might be in comparison.  The main guy I’d like to see get punched in the face more for being kind of a Ross style putz, and his love interest drives me crazy whenever she’s on screen.  Jason Segal found a role that doesn’t suck, and his girlfriend is super cute.

There are good and bad episodes, as with any show, but overall I would say check it out if you haven’t.  This Awesomed shirt from the TV Show T Shirt category makes a lot more sense once you have watched the show a little.

Sorry about the short post, but I have been working my butt off getting our new warehouse set up.  Movie tonight, review tomorrow.  Talk to you soon.

Dave

Count yourself lucky if your girlfriend doesn’t drag you to see this uber chick flick.

Somehow I feel weirder going to see movies like this by myself than I do seeing obvious kids movies such as Winnie the Pooh.  It is a bit of a puzzlement for me.  I think the reason really has to do with the fact that I can almost feel my testicles shriveling up during the course of the film, whereas with kids films I can feel some level of nostalgia easing me through.

So this is a chick flick in the truest sense of the term.  Don’t be fooled by the Iraq war action that goes on at the beginning.  It is brief and non graphic as possible.  You know how action films will crowbar in some romance to make it at least somewhat palatable to the girls in the audience?  The “action” here feels like a reversal of that concept in an attempt to get guys to not pass out during the film.

But is it a good chick flick or a bad one?  Kind of?  It is as cliche and formulaic as possible, with the only deviation from the typical bad story happening at the end when they opted to go for an even more cheesy and pat denouement.  I think the best descriptive for this movie is grinding.  It grinds it’s way through the plot and each cliche in turn like one of those industrial rock crushing conveyer belt machines, turning each large, weighty cliche into smaller and much more functional cliches in turn.  Long, romantic interludes drag on until you want to watch a more interesting movie on your iPhone while watching this one, and the pacing consistently is reminiscent of waiting at the DMV to get your license renewed.

The other thing that is glaringly missing from this film is chemistry.  Zac Efron is a pretty boy, and probably is the heart throb of any number of women out there, but to my perception if he was supposed to be delivering smouldering looks he should have checked to make sure someone had lit his pilot light first.  In fact, none of the characters actually read like real people.  They all seemed like caricatures of other, better developed characters: the sexy ex Marine who is in all ways is perfect (as described by women); the cartoonish small town sheriff/abusive ex husband; the single mom trying struggling to make it in the world; the precocious kid; the fat Southern politician (Dukes of Hazard style.  Dukes of Hazard image courtesy of the TV Show T Shirts); the worldly wise grandmother.  Each of them comes across so locked into their role that in spite of this movie being like 80% character development none of them seem to go anywhere.

Anyway, the movie.  Zac Efron (all the High School Musicals plus epicly bad film New Years Eve) plays Logan, a Marine who while on a mission in Iraq finds a picture of a hot girl right before all his friends get blown up.  This picture apparently keeps him safe (or something) and when he gets back he decides to try to find the girl.  After dealing with some PTSD issues (that are never mentioned again) he decides to find her.  She is in Louisiana and the best way for him to get there is to walk from Colorado (seriously, to any women readers out there are you not in the least offended by the blatant pandering that this movie is doing for you?) with his dog Zues (Zues and Logan?  Come on.  These names put my old friend Studly McSuperpenis to shame).  The girl Beth (Taylor Schilling-Dark Matter, Atlas Shrugged Part I (ha ha ha ha ha), Mercy) lives there with her mother and son.  Her brother died in Iraq.  He arrives at her family owned dog hotel where he opts to not tell her about the picture because…actually there is no reason other than the need to later create plot drama.  Seriously, I really doubt she would have had an issue with him returning a lost heirloom of her brother (that’s who’s picture it was) and it might have actually endeared him to her more.

Instead, he makes the stalker move of taking a job at the dog hotel.  She runs it with the her mother (Blythe Danner-Meet the Parents, Meet the Fockers, Howl’s Moving Castle) and her eight year old son Ben (Riley Thomas Steward-the Beaver, Straight A’s, A Christmas Wedding Tail) who is some kind of chess prodigy.  At first she is standoffish because…well I guess the movie directors must have needed more conflict than the whole “not tell about the picture” thing.  In time she naturally does what all women most do around Zac Effron looking guys (God I hate them all) and falls in love.  Meanwhile her ex husband Keith (Jay R. Ferguson-Mad Men, the Killer Inside Me, Campfire Tales) rips off every bad Southern small town sheriff stereotype as an experiment to see if people would love Roscoe P Coltrane if instead of being a bumbling goof he were an abusive jerk (with his father the town judge being Boss Hogg).

I’d like to say stuff ensues, but really not a lot does and what does happen progresses about as predictable as the tides.  I won’t ruin the ending completely but will say that true love triumphs as always (at least when you look like Zac Effon.  Rot in Hell).

The stars.  I will give credit for this film doing what it set out to do.  It was built to be a chick flick, and if you are a chick who doesn’t want to think too hard while feeling good this film we succeed in all regards.  Two stars.  There are a lot of really cool dogs in the movie, especially Logan’s German Sheppard.  One star.  Taylor Schilling is not super hot, but manages to come across as kind of a natural beauty that worked for me.  Also, of all the characters hers was the least unbelievable.  One star.  Total: four stars.

The black holes.  Most of the characters were so over the top that they felt like those giant inflatable balloons they make for Snoopy and Spider Man at the Macy’s Day Parade.  Two black holes.  Hamhanded attempts at creating conflict out of nothing in order to keep the audience from falling asleep.  One black hole.  Sluggish pacing.  One black hole.  An ending at complete odds with the entire rest of the film as well as coming from deep within the writers ass.  One black hole.  Blatant use of the weather to deliver an emotional point.  Happy times?  Sunny.  Conflict and bad times?  Rainy.  One black hole.  The situation Beth was in with her ex husband felt really fake and archaic.  Was this film supposed to be set in the 50′s?  One black hole.  Total: seven black holes.

A grand total of three black holes.  Should you go see this one?  If you have any testosterone and self respect at all than hell no.  Date movie?  Hell yes.  This film was created to be the perfect date movie.  If she isn’t in the mood to sleep with you (or Zac Effron) by the end of this show you should find a way to discretely check to see that she wasn’t born a man, or perhaps some kind of doppelganger alien.  If she has a brain and any kind of film knowledge or taste than she will be offended by the rampant use of romance cliches, but they are cliches because they work.

Thanks for reading.  Looks like all chick flicks this weekend.  I guess I will suck it up and go see Think Like a Man tomorrow, although I like to believe I already know how (maybe I’m fooling myself).  Follow me on Twitter @NerdKungFu.  Post any comments about this movie or my review here.  If you have a specific question or suggestion feel free to email me at david@nerdkungfu.com.  Talk to you soon.

Dave